Hook, Line and Thinker

Don Tyson said he started big game fishing to see corners of the world his father only dreamed of.

Through 40 years of chasing blue and black marlin from Madeira to the Maldives, what he discovered was more than just palm trees and elusive billfish. The chairman emeritus of Tyson Foods Inc. found a passion for wildlife conservation and boatloads of ideas.

Fellow anglers and associates such as Springdale lawyer Jim Blair, Tyson Foods’ former general counsel, said the saltwater sabbaticals helped Tyson come up with business concepts that were “sometimes impossible, sometimes strokes of genius.”

Tyson’s travels also inspired him to help found The Billfish Foundation Inc., a nonprofit organization in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., dedicated to the preservation of billfish species — sailfish, spearfish, white marlin, striped marlin, black marlin and the coveted blue marlin. The horn-nosed marlins range from about 250 pounds for males up to 1,400 pounds for the largest females. They’re considered the big game trophies of the ocean, the maritime equivalents of Africa’s Big Five: lions, cheetahs, hippos, alligators and Cape buffalo.

Tyson also personally contributed more than $20 million to help build the International Game Fish Association Hall of Fame and Museum. The 63,000-SF Fort Lauderdale facility is considered by many to be the Vatican of the sportfishing world.

Tyson, 74, does his philanthropic work quietly and shrugged off the suggestion by some that he has been instrumental in helping rebuild the world’s billfish stocks. Those who know the billionaire best, however, said Tyson’s commitment to helping promote the “catch and release” of big game fish has had a dramatic impact on both the sport and his life.

“A long time ago I found out there weren’t any chicken feathers or telephones out in the middle of the ocean,” Tyson said. “It’s always warm and sunny. The sand is white, and the sky is blue. More than anything else, though, it gave me time to really think about and plan our business. Leland [Tollett] and Buddy [Wray] and I worked together all our lives, and they said me going away for a while always helped.”

Tollett, who retired in 1998 as Tyson Foods’ chairman and CEO, said the boss often returned with a dog-eared scratch pad full of questions like, “Why don’t we think about this? What do we know about that?”

“We’d laugh about shaking the paper and most of the ideas falling off,” Tollett said. “But some of them would stick, and when they did they were usually pretty good ones. Don didn’t have too many ideas that didn’t make our company better.”

Tollett said one notion Tyson had at sea was the 1978 acquisition of the broiler division of Wilson Food Corp. The $25 million deal, according to Marvin Schwartz’s book, “Tyson: From Farm to Market,” was the company’s largest to date and brought on board four processing plants and $80 million in annual sales. Wray, who retired in 2000 as Tyson Foods’ president and chief operating officer, said Tyson was actually interested in Wilson’s pork group, too, but the broilers made the most sense at the time.

Tyson Foods quickly converted Wilson’s broilers to more lucrative Rock Cornish hens, the book said, helping boost the firm’s share to 60 percent of the then-$100 million game hen market.

Wilson was in need of the cash as it foundered toward a 1983 bankruptcy. Its surviving business eventually became beef giant IBP Inc., which Tyson Foods ultimately bought in 2001 for $4.6 billion.

“After that 1978 buyout,” Tollett said, “the market responded really well to us for the next 15 to 18 months.”

Even today, the mostly retired Tyson (he’s still a board director and company consultant) usually comes back to Northwest Arkansas with more than just a good tan. John Tyson, the current chairman and CEO, said suggestions still flow in from his father.

“Dad has had a passion for most things he’s done in life,” John Tyson said. “So the fishing hasn’t stopped, and neither have the ideas.”

Live a Little

Furman Greer, a Georgia poultry farmer and the owner of Greer Truck Line, gets credit for getting Don Tyson into billfishing. He convinced the poultry baron to join him on a sportfishing trip to Bimini in the mid-1960s. Don Tyson’s first billfish, a 400-pound blue marlin caught on that trip, still hangs in the executive wing at Tyson Foods’ headquarters.

A couple of years later, Don Tyson’s father, John William Tyson, died tragically at age 61 with his wife, Helen. On the night of Super Bowl I in 1967, the couple was headed out to Beaver Lake to watch the game on a new color TV when an unscheduled train collided with their vehicle and killed them both.

“My dad worked all his life and had never taken off any time before he was killed,” Don Tyson said. “I kind of decided that when our business got organized that I was going to take off some time while I was younger. I made myself a deal that I would start taking off one week per month when I was 40 years old, and I pretty much did it.”

Don Tyson began traveling and decided a blend of fishing and sight-seeing was the way to go. Eventually, he got serious and started investing in a series of fishing boats. Today’s fleet includes the 112-foot Horizons ship which Don Tyson calls “the supply boat,” and his famous 65-foot sportfishing vessel called Tyson’s Pride. A third smaller boat, the Release Me, is harbored at Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, close to some of the world’s best marlin fishing.

Blair said the Horizons, which carries 33,000 gallons of fuel and can make 5,000 gallons of fresh water per day, is really more of a “floating hotel” with its elaborate galley and “very adequate quarters.”

“It carries enough fuel that it could go around the world on its own without refueling,” Blair said.

The Horizons carries 90 days worth of supplies and six members of the fleet’s 10-man crew. The Tyson’s Pride, which is regularly written up in periodicals such as Billfish Magazine and Marlin for its world-class fishing excursions, is in the process of becoming a trade-in to Roy Merritt’s renowned Merritt Boat & Engine Yard in Pompano Beach, Fla. Don Tyson is upgrading to a 72-footer that’s expected to be ready by next spring.

“After about 10 years of these boats, little things start to break down,” Don Tyson said. “So I’m trading this one in. All the supply boat is for is to eat and sleep on and keep us supplied as we fish. Particularly in remote places like the Galapagos Islands, they’ve got fuel there, but it’s real limited and there aren’t really any places to stay.”

Merritt’s customers include the likes of country music singers George Straight and Alan Jackson, cookie tycoon William Entenmann, and Anheuser-Busch Cos. board director and Busch family heir Jim Orthwein.

Merritt said his boats generally cost $4.5 million to $6 million and are now mostly in the 72-to-80-foot range.

“Don takes his fishing real serious,” Merritt said. “I’ve known him since the mid-1980s, and I knew his brother Randal. Don’s fishing and off-time mean an awful lot to him. I don’t know if he’s any good at it or not, but he takes it real serious.”

The Billfisher King

Merritt made the last comment with a laugh, he said, because Don Tyson is widely considered to be among the world’s elite billfishermen by numerous publications and peers.

Estimates on the number of marlin Don Tyson has caught and released range from more than 400 by fellow TBF founder Mel Immergut to about 700 by Blair. Don Tyson has had a few big fish mounted, primarily those that died while hooked, and a couple of the first whoppers caught off his boats. About one in 50 marlin might die in a multi-hour struggle, particularly if they’ve been deep, he said.

A 1,000-plus pounder caught in the late 1970s by his brother Randal Tyson, who died in 1986, hung on the wall of Hoffbrau Steaks for years in downtown Fayetteville. There’s a handful of other mounts at favorite haunts such as Herman’s Rib House in Fayetteville. But mostly, Don Tyson’s monster marlin are just memories.

He confirmed that “four or five” world records have been caught off the back of his boat, but when told that the consensus estimate on his personal marlin tally was more than 500, he just smiled.

“I don’t keep track because the fun is just catching them and turning them loose for someone else to enjoy,” Tyson said.

Immergut, himself a world class billfisherman and chairman of Millbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy LLP, a law firm with more than 500 lawyers in Manhattan, said he’s fished around the world with Don Tyson for nearly 20 years.

“Don is devoted to conservation and obsessed with catching blue marlin,” Immergut said. “There are lots of fish in the ocean that are fun to catch, but Don passes them by to go after the one that’s the most difficult. You’ll go days and not catch a fish. But that doesn’t stop his single-minded passion for marlin fishing.”

Immergut said to be a billfisherman of Tyson’s class, certain patience, wherewithal and finances are required. But the most important characteristic is spirit. His favorite Tyson fishing story happened shortly after former President Bill Clinton took office in 1992. Immergut and his wife were fishing on the Tyson’s Pride off Segura, Brazil, at the Princess Charlotte bank.

“We were having a fabulous day trip, but Don had to get back to port early in order to catch a charter and make another connection to get to the White House for his first meeting there after Clinton’s election,” Immergut said. “My wife, who was five months pregnant at the time, hooked what everyone on board felt like would be an all-tackle blue marlin world’s record for men or women. She had the fish on for about three hours when we all realized we were coming to the point where Don was either going to have to cut the line and make his appointment with the president of the United States, or continue fighting and potentially have the fish everyone dreams of caught off his boat.

“He thought about it for 30 seconds and said, ‘I’m not that important to the president. He’ll understand if I miss the meeting.'”

The fish got away 10 minutes later and Don Tyson barely made his flight. But Immergut said the incident shows how much of a premium Don Tyson puts on good fishing.

Where it’s Done

Don Tyson jokes that the last place he caught a marlin is his favorite place to go. There’s some truth in that, because he goes everywhere. His fishing holes read like journal entries from early 20th century author Zane Grey’s fishing diaries. This August alone, he fished from Tahiti to Fiji, Tonga and Vanuatu before returning to Northwest Arkansas for September. He caught tuna, wahoo and marlin on the trip including a 600-pound blue marlin off Tonga.

“I go back to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef this fall, and from there we’re going on to Bali, the Maldives, through the Suez Canal and across the Mediterranean to the Azores off the coast of Africa, Madeira, Bom Bom (fishing community in Sao Tome and Principe) and Ghana.

“My standard is catching one marlin per day,” Don Tyson said. “There’s places where there are marlin, but they might be catching them one every 10 days. That’s pretty slow when you can just climb on an airplane and go where the fish are.”

In November of 1999, Don Tyson told Marlin magazine that if he was limited to one place in the world, it would be Cabo because, “you’ll catch something there almost any time of the year.”

“[At Cabo] You’ve got wahoo, blue marlin, dorado … just about everything,” Don Tyson said. “Most other places are seasonal, but Cabo and the Sea of Cortez are just teeming with ocean life.”

In 2002, off the coast of Cabo, Don Tyson and his friend Fred Cameron, a retired cattleman in San Diego, caught 142 marlin in two and a half days. They released every one, including some giants.

“Right now, for blue marlin the best place in the world is Ghana, Africa,” Don Tyson said. “I was over there this summer and borrowed my friend Fred’s boat. It was incredible.”

Arkansas Lt. Gov. Winthrop P. Rockefeller, who’s also chairman of The Billfish Foundation (see story, p. 22), said Don Tyson is highly regarded in billfishing circles not just because he travels to the best places, but because he can really fish. Rockefeller was the third cofounder of TBF with Tyson and Immergut.

“Don is a highly competent, serious angler,” Rockefeller said. “I’ve tried to get him to fish in our tournaments, but he says he doesn’t have to prove anything. He just fishes to fish. His passion and attitude are what have made him both a top notch angler and businessman.”

How it’s Done

Marlin run in singles and twos, Don Tyson said.

The most common technique for catching them is using artificial bait to tease the fish up behind the boat. Don Tyson said he and the crew then switch to live bait once the marlin are on the chase. The “bait and switch” technique will raise a boat’s catch ratio up to about 66 percent, he said.

If the fish are big, 130-pound-test fishing line is used. If they’re smaller, the sportfisherman said he prefers to go with 50-pound-test because marlin are more of a challenge on lighter tackle. He uses a lot of tackle by Shimano and Ande.

“Last year, I caught two that were more than 1,000 pounds in three days,” Don Tyson said. “I caught eight or 10 more that averaged 500 pounds each, but there probably aren’t too many people who’ve caught more than one 1,000-pounder in a couple of days. We were fishing on the reef in Australia, and the first 1,000-pounder took four hours and 15 minutes to reel in. Usually, anything over four hours I cut loose or lock up because it’s hard on the fish.

“The next day, I couldn’t even tie my shoes.”

Don Tyson said although billfishing is exciting because the fish leap out of the water and fight hard, they also can be dangerous. During the last 10 years, three billfishing boats worldwide have lost crew members who were either pulled overboard or speared by the fish.

“It’s pretty serious business out there because you’re dealing with a wild animal that can cause you some problems,” Tyson said. “I’ve had them go completely through the side of the boat.”

As hard as marlin battle, some of the biggest competitions on the Tyson’s Pride have been between the passengers. Don Tyson said he convinced his brother and son to join him on a fishing trip to Australia in 1976. That year, Randal caught the family’s first 1,000-pound marlin, and then in 1977 the current company chairman caught the second.

“Randal caught one, and I got zilch,” Don Tyson said. “Then Johnny caught one, and I got zilch. The third year I went and fished every day by myself until I caught [the 1,121-pound black marlin in the company’s board room]. When Johnny caught his, he was seasick as a dog, too. He was puking in a bucket and trying to wind the fish in at the same time.

“I’d say, ‘You want me to cut it loose?’ and he’d say, ‘No, and then blaaah.’ I think that’s when he decided to be a golfer.'”

“What Dad didn’t say is that after I caught a 1,000-pounder before him, I wasn’t invited back fishing for six years,” John Tyson laughed. “I will say I’ve enjoyed every minute I got to spend with Dad on the back of his boat. Fishing is just one of those things where you can get out with your friends and clear your mind and thoughts. Whether it’s the ocean or Beaver Lake, usually people who are into fishing are pretty good folks.”

Don Tyson said serious fishing is no different than running a business.

“You have to organize assets and you have to organize people,” he said. “You have to figure out where to go and get there, and after all that if you get a fish then that’s a bonus. Some days you get ’em, and some days you don’t. But fishing slows you down, teaches you humility.

“You go a few days without catching a fish, then you’re like the golfer who’s used to shooting 70 and all of a sudden shoots 100. You have to stop and think, ‘Now what am I doing?'”

Philanthropic Fisherman Gives Back for IGFA, TBF

Don Tyson said he helped found The Billfish Foundation and build a museum for game fishing to help preserve the sport he loves and to inspire new generations of anglers.

More than 15,000 school-age children annually visit the International Game Fish Association’s Hall of Fame and Museum in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. They represent a fourth of the $30 million facility’s total yearly visitors, but they’re the ones the chairman emeritus of Tyson Foods Inc. is most excited about.

The single largest contributor for the museum, Tyson said he hopes kids will come away from it with an appreciation for preservation.

“We tell them, even if you are going fishing for fish to eat, catch what you need for today’s food and don’t catch a whole bunch to fill up a box,” Tyson said.

“If we don’t save these fish, we won’t have them later on. I want my grandkids to be able to go fishing, too.”

Rob Kramer, president of the IGFA, said memorabilia at his facility includes the largest single archive of fishing-related publications in the world, thousands of photos and fishing film footage as far back as the 1930s.

Kramer said Tyson was instrumental in the purchase of “The Avalon,” the 38-foot custom boat built in 1927 for novelist Zane Grey, a big game fishing pioneer who caught the first recorded 1,000-pound marlin on a rod-and-reel. Tyson found the boat in New Zealand, bought it and had it restored. Two of Grey’s original three fishing diaries are there, too.

Tyson also helped the IGFA acquire a replica boat of Ernest Hemingway’s famous 1934 sportfishing vessel, “The Pilar.” The original one was already on display in Havana, Cuba, but Kramer said this 1933 sister ship is the same 38-foot model as the author’s.

Kramer said Tyson’s generosity has given writers and researchers “from every corner of the planet” a library and teaching tool that houses the complete history of the sport.

Arkansas Lt. Gov. Winthrop P. Rockefeller, chairman of TBF, said Tyson has also fought for game fishing’s future. He said TBF, in its 18th year this August, was founded to curb the decline of migratory billfish. Tyson, Rockefeller and Mel Immergut founded TBF.

TBF worked to establish the scientific data that prompted the passage of the 1994 U.S. Magnussen Act, an effort to limit long-line fishing — net harvesting akin to a 100-mile trotline in the ocean that primarily targets tuna. Billfish get trapped incidentally by the nets, too, as they chase tuna.

American long-liners have cooperated, but fleets from Japan, Russia, Korea and China aren’t constrained by the act, and therefore their billfish bycatch ratio (caught by accident) is still a focus of TBF.

Rockefeller said Tyson has lobbied for less invasive hooks, time and area long-line closures, and socioeconomic studies on the impact of sportfishing versus commercial harvesting in remote economies. Studies have shown, he said, avoiding spawning areas at certain times reduces sportfish bycatch ratios while only affecting tuna catches by 2 percent.

Tyson said early on one of TBF’s greatest challenges was convincing billfish tournaments to not kill every fish. Most tournaments now, he said, only kill the largest fish and the rest are turned loose.

“We never had a scientific base line on billfish stocks, but they were definitely declining,” Tyson said. “They had fished them out of Florida and the Bahamas, and now they’re starting to come back. We got long-lining slowed down in Mexico and Costa Rica. There’s a lot of data now to support the fact the stocks are improving.”

Rockefeller stressed that TBF is not trying to put anyone out of business. The organization’s goal, he said, is simply to ensure that billfish species thrive. He suggests supporting restaurants that display the TBF-supported sign, “No Marlin on the Menu.”

“We’re dependent on membership support, and we’re not just a bunch of rich people with big sport fishing boats,” Rockefeller said. “We have members in middle America who’ve never seen salt water outside of a glass for gargling.”

TBF is available online at www.billfish.org.